Russia key player as Ukraine rebels look to the future

In the former coal ministry of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin leans forward, clasps his big hands and gazes into the future of eastern Ukraine's new "people's republics".

“These elections legitimise the path we’ve taken and help to move to the next stage . . . They show we’re not some crazy band of criminals, but are acting with the people’s consent,” says the first speaker of Donetsk’s rebel parliament.

"We are keeping our options open. Next, we could form a federation or confederation of states, including with Russia, " Pushilin (33) says. "But we are not building a border with the west, but demolishing the border to east. We are not separatists – we are unifiers of the Russian world."

Russia and the rebels say Sunday’s disputed votes in separatist-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk gave their winners a mandate to negotiate as equals with Ukraine’s leaders, on radically changing relations between Kiev and the regions.

But the ballots were rejected by Ukraine and its western allies, who fear Moscow will help the separatists seize more Kiev-controlled territory before winter sets in, and consolidate the breakaway regions as it has in other divided ex-Soviet republics.

Emerging fiefdoms

And while a semblance of normality survives in Donetsk city – despite the rumble of artillery and departure of one-third of its pre-war population – in smaller towns and in Luhansk strange fiefdoms are appearing, including at least one whose warlord ruler has imposed the death penalty via an impromptu “people’s court”.

The Russian spindoctors who orchestrated the election with their local allies covered the event with a façade that simultaneously mimicked and appeared to mock western democratic conventions.

There may have been no electoral rolls, and scant difference between the manifestos of candidates for leadership and seats on “people’s councils”, and gunmen may have ambled around polling stations – but there were “international observers” and “exit polls”.

The monitors were plucked from the fringes of European politics, however, and this motley crew of far-right and far-left activists represented a previously unknown body called the “Agency for Security and Co-operation in Europe”.

Brand confusion

The similarity in name to that of to the 57-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in

Europe

was not accidental, and the monitors said their agency was now being formed as a rival to the OSCE, which they derided as a mere tool of US foreign policy.

The exit polls correctly predicted easy victories for incumbent "prime ministers": ex-mining electrician Alexander Zakharchenko in Donetsk and former Soviet army officer Igor Plotnitsky in Luhansk.

The Donetsk exit poll’s figures added up to 100.1 per cent, but no matter: the rebels and Russia were satisfied that international democratic norms had been met.

“Those elected have received a mandate to resolve the practical issues of re-establishing normal life in the region,” said Russia’s foreign ministry.

Grigory Karasin, a deputy foreign minister, said talks between the rebels and Ukraine's leaders could "bring results only on condition of equal dialogue based on mutual respect, with Kiev renouncing military operations and the notorious 'anti-terror operation'".

Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko railed against "a farce conducted under the barrels of tanks and guns, staged by two terrorist organisations", and called the ballot "a horrible event that has nothing in common with the real expression of free will".

He warned the Kremlin that recognition of the elections would be a “clear violation” of a ceasefire deal signed by Ukraine, Russia and the rebels to end months of fighting that has killed some 4,000 people and displaced about one million; deadly clashes have continued since the pact was signed on September 5th.

The EU and US said the vote could lead to an escalation of Ukraine’s conflict and the imposition of more sanctions on Russia, which Kiev and the West accuse of fomenting the insurgency and funnelling weapons and reinforcements to the rebels.

Plotnitsky announced yesterday that Luhansk should join Russia, saying that in “mentality and spirituality we’ve long been synchronised, we’ve long been united. Therefore, joining Russia is only a matter of time.”

Residents of Luhansk, he declared, “support the values of the Slavic world . . . support unity with great and powerful Russia” and “are waiting for the moment when, by rights, we become part of the Russian people, like Crimea”.

There are many different rebel groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, however, and though they share a strong Russian nationalism and aversion to Ukraine and the West, they do not all obey Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky.

The Luhansk region town of Alchevsk, for example, is run by the "Ghost Brigade" commanded by Alexei Mozgovoi.

People’s court

Late last month he presided over a “people’s court” of about 300 locals who, with a show of hands, convicted two men of rape. One was sentenced to fight on the frontline, and the other to death by firing squad, despite his mother’s desperate pleas. Mozgovoi and the

Ghost Brigade

made no secret of the trial, putting footage online as a warning to other potential miscreants.

Other areas of Luhansk are controlled by Cossacks with little allegiance to the main rebel leaders and – until his unexplained "resignation" this month – Igor Bezler (nicknamed "The Demon") was a law unto himself in the Horlivka region.

The ultimate power in this chaotic region is now Russia – not Ukraine – and it is to Moscow that eastern rebels of all stripes look for approval and support.

It is a matter of great discomfort to Kiev, Brussels and Washington that they also depend almost entirely on Russia to defuse a conflict that has dragged east-west relations to a post-cold-war nadir.

For Pushilin, the ex-casino croupier, security guard and pyramid-scheme salesman who is still one of the most prominent Donetsk rebels, eastern Ukraine is going through a “revolutionary process” of returning wealth and power to its people.

“The slogans you heard during Ukraine’s protests about fighting oligarchs and changing society – they are coming true only here,” he said. “We must now build our statehood and our economy. Then we will be able to attract other regions to join us – regions that are now still stuck in Ukraine.”